It´s a Postiglione Violin?

[Gabriel Vieira]

 

Hi. My name is Gabriel Vieira, I'm a violinist from Brazil. I own this violin, which supposedly by the label would be a Postiglione.

I recently did a dendrochronology. Cutting date of the caliper 1875. 

What do the experts think?

It sounds very balanced, powerful bass, clean and powerful highs, an incredible instrument. His neck is 1cm longer than normal, he has two neck replacement scars.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 18, 2023 by Gabriel Vieira

[jacobsaunders]

Could a friendly moderator possibly print the pictures please?

[Shelbow]

2 minutes ago, jacobsaunders said:

Could a friendly moderator possibly print the pictures please?

They were up when I approved the post, I think the OP is actively editing his post at the moment.

[JacksonMaberry]

I didn't know Post Malone made violins

[Michael Darnton]

I'm going to say there's no way it's a Postiglione.

[jacobsaunders]

Does it have any sort of stamp/inscription by the end pin?

[Michael Darnton]

2 hours ago, jacobsaunders said:

Does it have any sort of stamp/inscription by the end pin?

I don't think that's any better than "what does the label say", and is unnecessary in this case. Or is this still how they do this on the continent? :-)

[jacobsaunders]

47 minutes ago, Michael Darnton said:

I don't think that's any better than "what does the label say", and is unnecessary in this case. Or is this still how they do this on the continent? :-)

“on the continent” I think there is a reluctance to express far-reaching opinions having merely seen a dark, out of focus picture of just the belly

 

[Michael Darnton]

3 minutes ago, jacobsaunders said:

“on the continent” I think there is a reluctance to express far-reaching opinions having merely seen a dark, out of focus picture of just the belly

 

As you know, it's easier to rule something out by a photo than it is to say what it is. You have enough here. Take a better look.

[Shelbow]

With this one grainy photo with the violin in the centre, I think it could almost just be one of those custom printed fridge magnets. 

[Michael Darnton]

8 minutes ago, Shelbow said:

With this one grainy photo with the violin in the centre, I think it could almost just be one of those custom printed fridge magnets. 

I think you could know why this one is wrong if you applied yourself to it. From that photo. I'm a little surprised no one sees the problem, or maybe they think it's too easy so they can't be right. Tarisio has a mob of examples for comparison, and OP even gave a hint.

[Shelbow]

4 minutes ago, Michael Darnton said:

I think you could know why this one is wrong if you applied yourself to it. From that photo. I'm a little surprised no one sees the problem, or maybe they think it's too easy so they can't be right. Tarisio has a mob of examples for comparison.

Are you referring to the peg placement? 

If so, could it not possibly be a replacement scroll or repositioned pegs?

[violinnewb]

9 minutes ago, Michael Darnton said:

I think you could know why this one is wrong if you applied yourself to it. From that photo. I'm a little surprised no one sees the problem, or maybe they think it's too easy so they can't be right. Tarisio has a mob of examples for comparison, and OP even gave a hint.

The f-holes?

This is a fun game!

[Blank face]

I agree that such a photo is completely inappropriate to tell anything for sure. The ff are a bit low (corresponding with the longer neck?), the scroll a bit too small, the outline a bit too rough, but this could be an incidental oddity.

 In my eyes the described process of identification, based on widely stretched conclusions from a Saxon/Bohemian dendro, rises more than one red flag.

It would be more interesting to know who were the persons saying "it is", and who was saying "it isn't".

[Michael Darnton]

The f-holes are more than a bit low and that's the problem. That's why I say it's not a Postiglione.

[jacobsaunders]

13 minutes ago, Michael Darnton said:

The f-holes are more than a bit low and that's the problem. That's why I say it's not a Postiglione.

I would still prefer to see the whole fiddle before I come to any conclusion

[Dr. Mark]

Long ago, in a workshop far, far away, Vincenzo Postiglione made a violin.  'Man, this is junk' he thought. 'The f-holes are far to low and the eyes too close together.  The C's are too stiff.  No-one will buy this and I don't like it.  Hey Mario - burn this thing will you?'  Mario keeps the violin and later sells it as a Vincenzo Postiglioni, just to make some bucks and confound later dealers.

[Marty Kasprzyk]

The bridge looks too high rather than the f holes too low.

[Ratcliffiddles]

On 4/11/2023 at 4:58 PM, Gabriel Vieira said:

In the dendrochronology, this instrument, which correlated very high (from the conservatory), has woods from Bohemia or the Czech Republic, thus agreeing with the theory that Postiglione used blank bodies from Germany or the Czech Republic.

The fact that the wood on the bellies of some Postiglione instruments may be from Germany/Bohemia only means that the wood is from Germany/Bohemia. It does not imply that he bought instruments in the white from there, but instead, as did just about any other maker at the time, that he sourced his wood from Germany.  

Most Mirecourt violin fronts of the period are also made from Bohemian wood, and so are those from Italy and England, and of course local German and Bohemian instruments too. Drawing any kind of parallels between specific instruments when this wood is identified is therefore, in my opinion, unwise.

Did Mauro say that the Postiglione from the Museum was from the same tree as your violin? Whilst this is no "proof" of authorship, it would make the story interesting.  Otherwise, "very high correlation" may just mean that the similarities in tree-ring patterns suggest that tree growth occurred in the same Forest or region, the wood of which ended up just about anywhere in Europe.

[Michael Darnton]

1 hour ago, Marty Kasprzyk said:

The bridge looks too high rather than the f holes too low.

Marty et al, a little violin history:

As far as we know the Amati family designed the violin. Right from the start, Andrea Amati established the location for the tops of the bottom f-hole eyes as even with a line struck between the bottom of the purfling in the two c-bouts. After that virtually every Cremonese maker and then every violin maker after used this standard to some extent. They haven't always been aware of it if they're just copying a model, but the model they copied has that so they do by default, except sometimes they miss by a mm or two because they don't know the rule. There are three major exceptions: del Gesu, who usually respected this but not always, one of the last Bergonzi family members and the 1800-1820 Gagliano family members often placed the fs lower, the holes somewhat below that line. As a result these violins with low f-holes often have stops running 200 mm or even longer to 208 or so, which makes playing problems and is one of the reasons it doesn't often happen. 

We don't have the stop for this violin but i feel pretty safe assuming that this is the case here given that the lower eyes appear to be at least one full eye width, 9 mm, too low--probably giving a stop  somewhere between 200 and 205mm, and that the current position of the bridge came about one of two ways. Either someone set the stop to 195 mm and put the bridge there, or someone moved the bridge north to 195 and then some more north to give something closer to a ~328 mm normal string length, considering that the neck is stated as long.

I'm taking the long way around here because the next thing to do is go find Postiglione photos (real ones) and for that you can go to tarisio.com where you can quickly see that Postiglione invariably followed the Amati/Cremonese rule, just like almost everyone else in mainstream Italian violin history. There isn't a single example that doesn't, nor have I seen one in the past, myself. I feel safe in saying that until otherwise proven, that's one of the rules for identifying a Postiglione, because that is, literally, how criteria are assembled for this job. There is, again literally, no way in legitimate expertise to take a feature that doesn't fit in a violin with (incidentally) the wrong outline and the wrong f-holes and make that into a Postiglione without any similar and properly certified examples. I don't need to see the rest of the violin to get this far, and the picture doesn't need to be crystal clear to see the things I've mentioned. 

Therefore, there's no way it's a Postiglione, as that make is currently understood, as far as I am aware, and anyone with half an eye should be able to put it in with a bunch of good Postiglione photos and nail it as wrong for the reasons I mentioned. 

As to what it is, I have no idea at all except maybe some backwoods other Italian or more likely, given the strange shape of the upper bout, some eastern European violin from an imprecise tradition, of which there are many. Or maybe some back country Englishman, but I sort of doubt that.

[Gabriel Vieira]

1 hour ago, Ratcliffiddles said:

The fact that the wood on the bellies of some Postiglione instruments may be from Germany/Bohemia only means that the wood is from Germany/Bohemia. It does not imply that he bought instruments in the white from there, but instead, as did just about any other maker at the time, that he sourced his wood from Germany.  

Most Mirecourt violin fronts of the period are also made from Bohemian wood, and so are those from Italy and England, and of course local German and Bohemian instruments too. Drawing any kind of parallels between specific instruments when this wood is identified is therefore, in my opinion, unwise.

Did Mauro say that the Postiglione from the Museum was from the same tree as your violin? Whilst this is no "proof" of authorship, it would make the story interesting.  Otherwise, "very high correlation" may just mean that the similarities in tree-ring patterns suggest that tree growth occurred in the same Forest or region, the wood of which ended up just about anywhere in Europe.

Dear Peter. I agree with you, he didn't say it was from the same tree. Only that it had a good correlation with some specific instruments of his already published research. He assured that they did not come from the same tree. It also made it clear that it does not guarantee that Postiglione made this violin.

[Gabriel Vieira]

 

 

Here's a picture of the scroll

Edited September 18, 2023 by Gabriel Vieira

[Marty Kasprzyk]

1 hour ago, Michael Darnton said:

Marty et al, a little violin history:

>

We don't have the stop for this violin but i feel pretty safe assuming that this is the case here given that the lower eyes appear to be at least one full eye width, 9 mm, too low--probably giving a stop  somewhere between 200 and 205mm, and that the current position of the bridge came about one of two ways. Either someone set the stop to 195 mm and put the bridge there, or someone moved the bridge north to 195 and then some more north to give something closer to a ~328 mm normal string length, considering that the neck is stated as long.

>

You're right.

 I scaled a photo of an Andrea Amati violin and this one in question and I found its f holes were about 10mm too low.

[Jeny Mahon]

How is this the same scroll? 

[Gtone]

2 minutes ago, Jeny Mahon said:

How is this the same scroll? 

I know... camera work is a skill in itself.

Same scroll though.